Don't Mess With Dreamweaver

I found a controversial blog post in PC Pro. In that post, Tom Arah made a bold statement that Dreamweaver is dying. That made me say: "Dreamweaver? Dying?".

He supports his claim by saying: Dreamweaver is for static sites and static is out, dynamic is in; and it is flawed in posting content (which happens to be king) and making it easy to search. He ended it with the following: "Dreamweaver is dying. Long live Drupal."

Wow! That was heavy. After reading the post and browsing through the comments (there are a lot of them), I learned something: Don't mess with Dreamweaver. The exchange is also entertaining, in a different sort of way.

I am not saying that he is wrong or that he is right. It's just that there are better ways he could have said what he wanted to say if he only thought a little more carefully. I myself am a victim of that sometimes. (that's why I said I learned a lot)

Bashing Dreamweaver is a little bit like bashing Emacs or Vim. It is difficult to expect the [Emacs|Vim] user to respond rationally to such an attack specially when you consider the fact that they truly (and rightfully) believe that their tool is very useful and that they have spent a considerable amount of time learning to use it effectively. The same also applies to Dreamweaver except that the user not only spent a considerable amount of time learning the thing but also spent a substantial amount of cash for the license. Once you understand that, you will see the comment area of that post in a different light.

My own thought on the matter is that Content Management Systems like Joomla and Drupal can coexist with webpage editors, like Dreamweaver and Expression Web, and HTML editors like TextPad and EditPlus; and, no, you can't compare CMS with Dreamweaver just like you can't compare apples with oranges. There may be some changes in the roles Dreamweaver plays with the introduction of CM systems but CMS certainly does not render Dreamweaver irrelevant or obsolete.

Finally, We should make full use of all the tools that are available to us instead of bashing those which we do not use (specially if those tools have an army of loyal users). Instead of putting down things, let's look for new or productive ways to use them. Tools like Dreamweaver, Expression Web, Joomla, Drupal, TextPad and EditPlus help make our Web development tasks easier. As such, they are our friends. We do not put down friends—we use them. (kidding) :)